


Life Implies Death

by TheDragonofHouseMormont



Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: I meant to write something funny, and ended up writing an introspective piece on Lenore oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 01:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8307805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonofHouseMormont/pseuds/TheDragonofHouseMormont
Summary: There is too much death in her to allow for so much life.





	

The first time it happens, Lenore is 8 years old.  A large, black beetle takes up residence just outside her bedroom window.  For two days she watches it walk back and forth, but making no move to leave.  On the second night she opens her window to greet it, only to find it lying on its back, legs curled in toward its belly.

She leaves the body where it is, sparing it a glance every so often until, finally, it disappears.

She doesn’t give the beetle any more thought until nearly a year has passed.  A layer of snow covers the ground like a thin blanket, her shoes crunching through to the dirt below with little effort.  A sharp breeze brushes past her cheek just as a loud croak catches her attention.  Her nanny stops walking immediately, startled, but Lenore continues forward, her gaze up at the endless white sky, hardly noticing the tug on her hand.  She hears the loud croak again and a speck in the sky grows larger as it hurtles toward her, crashing to the Earth just a few feet ahead.

Lenore pulls her hand free and races forward, peering down at the torn black feathers, the drops of blood on the snow, the eyes unmoving.  She reaches out, mesmerized, wanting to feel the feathers like silk between her fingers.  But her nanny snatches back her hand, having caught her once more, and pulls her away from the morbid sight.

And it continues.  Wherever Lenore goes, death seems to follow.  A moth on a windy day.  A whole line of ants during a hot summer.  Her best friend at school.  The cat her family adopts.  It becomes more frequent.  A squirrel finds her while she’s out walking and dies right before her feet as if its heart could not go on beating.  She finds a caterpillar making a cocoon as it hangs from a tree, but it stops moving as she steps near.  She passes that same tree the next day and checks in on the caterpillar, only to find that it has shriveled up exactly where she had left it.

Her mother becomes sick with consumption and Lenore tends to her as she can, sitting by her side every day.  When her mother breathes her last breath Lenore closes her eyes and steps outside the room.  She takes a deep breath, steeling herself, keeping any tears from falling.

And she gets the message, okay?  She gets it.

-

 _Spirit,_ the voice says, calling her, and if Lenore didn’t have eyes before she does now as she opens them and sees the study.  “Spirit,” the woman says again.  “Speak your truth to us.”

Lenore doesn’t speak, not at first.  She blinks rapidly, trying to orient herself.  She remembers her wedding day, her fever, lying down when she could no longer stand.  She looks at her clothes and sees her wedding dress.  Is it still her wedding day?  Is she better now?  She sees her father standing just behind the woman, but there’s something off about him.  “Dad!” she exclaims as she runs to him, but when she tries to put her arms around him, they pass right through.  She steps back out of shock.  “Dad?”

In the dim candlelight she watches the tears roll down his cheeks.  “My child,” he manages.  But it seems no more words will come.

“What’s wrong?” Lenore asks, looking between her father and the woman.  “Why can’t I touch him?”

“Because, Miss,” the woman responds.  “You have passed beyond this realm.”

“Oh.”  Lenore stares down at her feet.  She remembers.  The wedding dress, the fever, losing consciousness while lying down.  She remembers that she was dying as she laid there.  She remembers that she is dead.

At least she died looking beautiful, right?  It can’t be all bad.

The woman continues, “Your father wished to say goodbye to you.”

“Oh,” Lenore repeats, and she steels herself once more, just as she always learned to.  If she was preparing for anything, it was this.  If she was born for anything, it was death.  She straightens her shoulders, puts on her sweetest smile, and looks her father in his tear-filled eyes.  “Goodbye.  I love you.”

He doesn't say anything, it seems he can’t.  He nods quickly, the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile, the tears coming down faster.

Lenore closes her eyes, waiting to feel herself drift off once more.  Nothing happens.  She opens her eyes again, thinking that maybe it just isn’t something she can feel.  But no, she’s still in the study, the woman and her father watching her, confusion seeping into their faces.  “Um, am I supposed to be leaving now?”

The woman steps closer.  “You _are._ This is most unusual.  Some spirits do remain earthbound, occasionally, when there is some business they still feel they must attend to.  Is there something you left undone?  Some purpose unfinished?”

Lenore shrugs her shoulders.  She can’t think of a single thing she still needed to do.

“Perhaps it is something you are unaware of,” the woman suggests.

“Maybe,” Lenore agrees halfheartedly.  Her mind has already moved on, making the best of the situation.  “But hanging about here might be kind of fun.  I’ll always look my best and I can walk through walls and— ooh, I can haunt people!  Where’s Guy?  I can haunt him first.”

Her father looks up at the mention of her fiancé and she can see that, though his tears have stopped, his expression is troubled.  “I’m sorry, my dear, but Guy is no longer with us.  He took his own life.”

The woman frowns.  “I didn’t sense any other spirits in this house,” she mutters.

“But I thought,” Lenore ignores her.  “I thought that it would end with me.”

“That what would end?” the woman asks.

“My curse.  The curse that brings death to those around me.  I thought that when I died, my curse would too.”

The woman shakes her head, smiling.  “You weren’t cursed.”

Lenore wants to believe her, but experience has told her otherwise.  Maybe her curse just wanted one more victim.  “You can bring him back, though, right?  Just like how you brought me back.”

“I can try,” the woman answers.

-

Two people have already died which means things are getting pretty serious.  They need to figure out who the murderer is as soon as possible, before more people get murdered.  Lenore doesn’t fear for herself, but she’s seen enough death for one afterlife already.  Not to mention, she worked hard on that soup and the only person who even tasted it was the dead guy.  And maybe H. G. Wells.  She grabs some paper, but she has no intention of taking notes herself.  No way, too much energy with the pen and the writing and everything.  Someone else can do it.  “Who’s the best writer here?” she asks the room.

And naturally, every single one of them raises a hand.

“You, Goggles,” she says as she tosses Wells the paper.  She finds she trusts him for some reason, though he’s practically a stranger.  He isn’t like the others, he’s quiet and a little odd.  But he’s the only guest who actually made an effort at the potluck part of the dinner, perhaps a bit too much really.  She finally understands, she thinks, what people mean when they say it’s the thought the counts.  And so yeah, maybe she likes him a little.  Because he could have made bread, but he made a whole invention.

Because she throws him a piece of paper and he comes out with a notebook full of notes.  And a poster board.  With pictures.

So yeah, maybe she loves him a little.

-

When they split up to search the house she leads him to the attic.  Her attic.  The one part of the house she has claimed for herself, where Edgar never goes.  But she brings this stranger.  This strange man with his goggles and where did he even get that screwdriver?

But he isn’t searching for clues.  No, he’s thinking ahead rather than looking behind.  Lenore doesn’t quite get it.  She’s never been a fan of looking to the past, but since her death a past is all she’s really had to look at.  And this house with its walls and ravens and lonely poet.  But a future?  The future is unknowable, yet here’s a writer and scientist standing before her who believes in time travel, who thinks he can catch a killer doing things they haven’t done yet by preparing for it.  He has a point, she admits, even if she still makes fun of him.

He’s surprised when she doesn’t suspect him of being the killer, but she trusts him.  He isn’t the killer, he can’t be.  There’s too much life in him to be the cause of so much death.  He’s all energy, whether nervous or excited.  He’s creativity and passion.  He’s eager to create, to be useful, his love of inventing like the warmth of sunlight she hasn’t felt on her skin in years.  She wants that warmth, to hold on to it, to carry it with her.

But then he asks her about her death.  She has never forgotten it since the séance; her dress, her fever, Guy by her side.  “That week,” she corrects herself as she narrates.  “Love of my life that week.”  Not that it’s a fact H.G. has any particular right to.  She won’t look at him while she tells the story, doesn’t know his reactions.  But she told him this fact because it’s the truth, because it’s something she needs him to know.

She has always been at an impasse with herself, somewhere between falling easily and not really falling at all.

-

She realizes it when they’re standing over Krishanti’s body.  So much has happened this evening that she never anticipated.  The murders, meeting with Krishanti again, seeing Guy again.  _Guy._ She tries to blame him for his foolishness, but in truth she’s only ever really blamed herself.

She would never hurt Krishanti, the thought has not once occurred to her, but Oscar seems to think she might.  “Balderdash,” H.G. exclaims, standing up for her, pointing out that calling Krishanti was his idea and not hers.  He’s all nervous energy again, speaking up in a way that he likely doesn’t often do, and she can’t help but smile.

Until she remembers.  His energy and voice, his light and warmth, it’s all at risk.  Like the beetle and the bird, her cat, her friend, her mother, Guy.  There is too much death in her to allow for so much life.

A murderer walks amongst them.  H.G. could be next.  Would leaving save him?  Could it save any of them?  If her curse brought them death, she knows that leaving won’t make the killer go away, no matter how much she might hope.  So instead she vows to herself to keep an eye on him.

-

Watching Oscar sit in a chair is entirely uneventful, so she isn’t surprised when H.G. decides he wants to go back up to the attic to keep working on his invention.  She immediately volunteers to go with him.  She’d rather be in the attic anyway, her sanctuary from all this insanity.  And she wants to help with the invention; the sooner they catch this killer the sooner all of this will be over, and the sooner he’ll be safe again.

Mostly Lenore waits in the attic while he works, watching him go back and forth, attaching wires to things she admits she doesn’t understand.  But she’s trying to work it all out and wonders how they’ll be able to view what the camera captures without being there watching as well.

“My dear Lenore,” H.G. says as he pops up from the latest part of the attic he’d managed to fold himself into.  She has to hold back a smile at the endearment while he explains the newest piece of his invention.

His openness surprises her a little, but it suits him.  Like the warmth he always seems to emanate, his emotion is a natural part of him, and a part he doesn’t appear to be all that good at hiding, if he even wants to hide it at all.

Lenore has never managed to be like that, she can’t say things like that with such ease.  This, her being with him in the attic, helping as she can, trying to keep him safe, is the only way she knows how to express that she cares.

So when he’s just about done and asks her to take the camera to the roof, she accepts the job.  It’ll take a couple minutes at most, and then they will be done.  There’s a breeze outside as she stands on top of the house, but she can’t really feel it.  She watches it rustle the leaves of the tallest trees while she hooks everything up, and she remembers what it felt like when she was a live.  The way a cold breeze would sting her cheeks on a snowy winter morning.

She steps back into the attic, ready to see if everything works, if they can watch what the camera captures on the electronic video display… thing.  What she finds is smoke and H.G. on the floor.

He’s coughing and she’s saying his name as she rushes to sit down beside him.  He can’t be dying, not here, not in the attic, not when she’d only been gone for so short a time.  She makes sure to become corporeal, to hold him up, to hold him close.  “What’s your real name?” she asks, because this can’t be the last of him, this can’t be all she ever knows.

With his last breath he tells her.  And she feels… she feels…

_I suppose if I were him, I’d be extremely sad too._

She’s already dead.  This must be decomposition, invisible creatures come to take away the final parts of her.  She can’t even cry, her tears were stolen from her years ago along with the blood in her heart and the breath in her lungs.  All she’d been left with was her sarcasm and her quiet caring.  And for a moment, for these few short hours, she thought she had H.G.

He was too young, too vibrant, too kind.  He deserved better than this.  The smoke in the room dissipates while she holds him, unmoving.  As it clears she sees his electronic terminal invention, as complete as it is going to be.

And she knows what she needs to do.  There are still five living people downstairs and H.G. had sought a way to save them.  She’ll carry his invention and she’ll carry him to everyone else.  She’ll discover the killer and give his death a meaning that hers never has.

And maybe, if she can get help, if it isn’t a cruel thing to do, she’ll find a way to bring him back.


End file.
